In the spring of 1989, a young man's promising life was abruptly and mysteriously interrupted. On May 28, 1989, 25-year-old Dwayne Defazio was last seen in Winter Park, Florida. At the time of his disappearance, Dwayne was an employee at the Burdines department store located in the Orlando Fashion Square. The last known moments of his life were spent with friends at the Fairbanks Inn near Winter Park, after which he was reportedly dropped off at his mother's house. Dwayne, a Caucasian male with black hair and brown eyes, has not been seen or heard from since that day. He was known to wear gold-colored wire-rimmed glasses and jewelry, including a gold-colored chain with an Italian horn charm and a nugget ring on his pinkie finger.
The circumstances following Dwayne's last known whereabouts quickly painted a grim and troubling picture. In the days after he was last seen, his mother went to his mobile home to check on him, only to make a horrifying discovery.
The interior of the home was marked by a significant amount of blood, with stains found on both the floor and the bed. The unsettling scene inside was mirrored by what was found outside. Dwayne's yellow Chevrolet Chevette was parked in the driveway, but it had been vandalized; the tires were slashed and the windshield was shattered. These discoveries strongly suggested that Dwayne had been the victim of a violent encounter, leading authorities to suspect foul play was involved in his sudden disappearance.
For years, the case remained cold, a painful and unanswered question for Dwayne's family. His sister took it upon herself to search for answers, even hiring forensic psychics and conducting her own interviews with people who saw her brother on the night he vanished. Through these persistent efforts, the name of a local resident, Kenny Arnold, repeatedly surfaced as a person of interest. Before Dwayne's disappearance, Arnold had allegedly made threats to kill him, dismember his body, and feed it to alligators. A major break in the case came sixteen years later when Arnold's fiancée recanted her initial alibi for him. She admitted to investigators that she had lied about his whereabouts on the day Dwayne went missing and confessed to witnessing Arnold stab and shoot him. Based on this new testimony, authorities were preparing to charge Arnold with Dwayne's murder, but before they could, Arnold died of a drug overdose in 2005. The Orange County Sheriff's Office has investigated this case, but despite the passage of time and the death of the primary suspect, the search for Dwayne Defazio continues. His case serves as a somber reminder of a life cut short and a family left without closure.Last Seen: May 28, 1989
